The UN has warned about the health and environmental dangers from the processing of e-waste -- the discarded electronic and electrical material -- by the informal sector in India without proper safeguards.

A conference titled India-ASEAN Partnership@25 was held on December 13 at the Taj Mansingh. The event was organized by Kalinga International Foundation (KIF), a think tank that brings together the east and north-eastern region of India with our neighbours, the ASEAN states and the wider Indo-Pacific region.
The Conference started at 2 PM and had as its Chief Guest Dharmendra Pradhan, Minister of Petroleum and Natural Gas and Skill Development and Entrepreneurship, at the inaugural session.
There were five thematic sessions that included the inaugural and valedictory, with the participation of distinguished scholars, former diplomats and ambassadors of the ASEAN states.
The inaugural session called the India-ASEAN Strategic Partnership and the Act East Policy was followed by a session on Economic Co-operation with ASEAN, Regional and Bilateral Co-operation, Security Challenges, and The Importance of the North East and Eastern Region of India for the Act East Policy. Pradhan spoke of Odisha’s deep ...

200 kms away from the capital Jaipur, when chief minister Vasundhara Raje was celebrating 4th anniversary of her government in Jhunjhunu and counting achievements of BJP government amid much fanfare, the opposition Congress was busy spewing venom against her rule and pressing its countdown button in Jaipur. Congress state President Sachin Pilot accused government of corruption and said that BJP has pushed the state back bringing anarchy in the system.
“There is no sign of law and order and governance in the state. If at all the government is doing anything honesty, that is corruption deeds,” said Pilot.
He said that the countdown of Raje government has begun and public will teach a strong lesson to BJP in the next elections.
“Right from youth to women to farmers, every section of the society is suffering. The government has failed on all the fronts,” he said.
Going a step ahead, leader of opposition in assembly Rameshwar Dudi termed BJP government as one of the biggest ‘political crash’ in the history of ...

TOKYO — Toshiba has cleared one of the last remaining hurdles to a planned sale of its microchip subsidiary and moved a step away from the financial brink.
The struggling Japanese conglomerate said Wednesday that it had settled a legal dispute with Western Digital, the San Jose data storage company, that threatened to block the microchip deal. Toshiba is counting on the sale to bring in about $14 billion in much-needed cash after its losses on nuclear power projects in the United States left its finances in tatters.
Toshiba and Western Digital said Wednesday that they had agreed to withdraw a cluster of lawsuits and arbitration claims over the deal that they had filed against each other.

The practice of drilling into the ground to release natural gas—known as hydraulic fracturing or fracking—first made national headlines in 2011 when drinking water taps in fracking towns in Pennsylvania began catching fire because flammable methane was seeping into water supplies. Since then, fracking has been linked to earthquakes in Oklahoma and a myriad of health issues. Proponents […]

After combing through a decade’s worth of Pennsylvania birth records, researchers have found that pregnant women living within two-thirds of a mile of a hydraulic fracturing well were 25% more likely to give birth to a worryingly small infant than were women who lived at least 10 miles outside...

Staff ReporterSHILLONG, Dec 13: The Meghalaya Mineral Development Corporation Limited (MMDC) will act as an “instrument” to provide immediate relief to coal miners, who are affected due to NGT ban on coal mining in the state according to Chief Minister, Dr. Mukul Sangma.

A Delhi court on Wednesday convicted former Jharkhand Chief Minister Madhu Koda and ex-coal secretary HC Gupta after they were found guilty of criminal conspiracy and corruption in a coal-block allocation scam case.
Special Judge Bharat Parashar convicted the duo along with three others for irregularities in the allocation of Rajhara North coal block in Jharkhand to Kolkata-based private company, Vini Iron and Steel Udyog Ltd (VISUL).
Besides the former chief minister and Gupta, others who have been held guilty are former Jharkhand chief secretary AK Basu, Koda's close aide Vijay Joshi, and the company VISUL under Section 120(B) (criminal conspiracy) of Indian Penal Code and Section 13(1)(d) of Prevention of Corruption Act, which entails maximum punishment of seven years.
Arguments on the sentence will be heard on Thursday.
Four cases have been so far decided among the 30 cases arising out of the coal block allocation scam unearthed during the previous UPA regime.
The court, while announcing the ...

Improving the perception of technical and vocational education is on the government’s priority list, according to Minister of Skill Development and Entrepreneurship and Petroleum and Natural Gas, Dhar...

Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Wednesday attacked his predecessor Manmohan Singh and the UPA government saying some of its "people" had pressurised banks to lend to some industrialists, which he described as the "biggest scam", bigger than 2G, coal and Commonwealth Games scams.